Infovox iVox adds first genuine children's voices to Mac OS X

[prMac.com] Amsterdam, Netherlands - Today AssistiveWare(R) and Acapela Group announced the release of Infovox iVox 3.1, which brings the first four genuine, natural-sounding children's voices to Mac OS X. In addition, the update adds three new male voices. These voices work with any Mac application, including Apple's VoiceOver, TextEdit, Preview, Safari, Adobe's Acrobat Reader, AssistiveWare's VisioVoice, Proloquo and GhostReader.

"We are extremely happy that the new naturally-sounding children's voices that were originally developed by AssistiveWare and Acapela Group for use in our Proloquo2Go and Pictello iPad apps are now also available on Mac OS X," said David Niemeijer, CEO and founder of AssistiveWare. "Now children can listen to a voice resembling their own age in educational apps, when listening to PDFs or when using Apple's VoiceOver screen reader for vision impaired users."

To support the needs of our younger users, Infovox iVox 3.1 offers a total of four genuine children's Text to Speech voices: boy and girl voice for both American English and British English. The high-quality voices were recorded by and for children. Learn more about how these voices were made and how Text to Speech works in the videos.

"This groundbreaking project is the first of its kind in the industry," said Lars-Erik Larsson, CEO of Acapela Group. "With over 2,500 hours of research, recording, processing and development, the new children's voices are a fulfilling result and a reflection of our longtime leadership in this field."

In addition, the update offers three new male voices, two American voices, Will and the southern-sounding Micah voice as well as the Australian Tyler voice. Besides adding new voices, Infovox iVox 3.1 also fixes an issue with characters with diacritical marks. Words that contain accents will now be pronounced correctly in any foreign language.

About Acapela Group:
Entirely dedicated to developing and deploying natural language interfaces, Acapela Group is the European leader in speech solutions. Acapela Group speech solutions have already been deployed in many services and applications: voice portals, unified messaging services, CRM and contact centers, talking web, interactive games, edutainment software, e-learning tools, public address, assistive tools for the disabled, navigation aid, embedded systems, and much more.

Pricing and Availability:
The new children's voices and Micah will cost 30 dollars/euros excluding VAT each and can easily be purchased from within the Infovox iVox Voice Manager. The other two male voices cost 20 dollars/euros. This allows installation on two computers. A 30-day fully-functional trial of each voice can also be downloaded from within the Infovox Voice Manager, enabling a thorough evaluation before purchase. Infovox iVox 3.1 is a free update for our existing users. For more information and the fully-functional demo please see our Infovox iVox page. You can also contact one of our distributors such as Origin Instruments Corporation for North America or Kallysta for France.

AssistiveWare is the worldwide leader in innovative assistive technology software for Mac OS X and iOS. This includes award-winning KeyStrokes(TM) and TouchStrokes(TM) virtual keyboards, SwitchXS(TM) scanning on-screen keyboard, LayoutKitchen(TM) panel editor, Proloquo(TM) multi-purpose speech solution, award-winning VisioVoice(TM) for vision impaired Mac users, Pictello(TM) visual story-telling app for iOS as well as the ground breaking and award-winning Proloquo2Go(R) communication solution for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The ConvenienceWare product line makes the advanced technologies developed by AssistiveWare available in cool and convenient applications that make the life of Mac users easier. AssistiveWare and ConvenienceWare are trade names and registered trademarks of AssistiveWare B.V. GhostReader, VisioVoice, SwitchXS, KeyStrokes, TouchStrokes, LayoutKitchen, Proloquo2Go and Proloquo are trademarks or registered trademarks of AssistiveWare B.V. Infovox iVox is a trademark of Acapela Group. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

Alert

Alert

"I was blown away by the level of service I recieved from the people at prMac. From the quick responses to the brilliant touch-up on our press release - that I thought was already a pretty darn good text. I would imagine I speak for most of their customers when I say you'll be in good hands here."